y, November 19th,
[Nicolai, exactest of men, only that Documents were occasionally less
accessible in his time, gives (ANEKDOTEN, vi. 187), "Saturday, November
25th," as the day of the Oath; but, no doubt, the later inquirers,
Preuss (i. 56) and others, have found him wrong in this small instance.]
these Seven, with due solemnity, administer the Oath (terms of Oath
conceivable by readers); Friedrich being found ready. He signs the Oath,
as well as audibly swears it: whereupon his sword is restored to him,
and his prison-door opened. He steps forth to the Town Church with his
Commissioners; takes the sacrament; listens, with all Custrin, to an
illusive Sermon on the subject; "text happily chosen, preacher handling
it well." Text was Psalm Seventy-seventh, verse eleventh (tenth of our
English version), _And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remember
the years of the right hand of the Host High;_ or, as Luther's version
more intelligibly gives it, _This I have to suffer; the right hand of
the Most High can change all._ Preacher (not Muller but another) rose
gradually into didactic pathos; Prince, and all Custrin, were weeping,
or near weeping, at the close of the business. [Preuss, i. 56.]

Straight from Church the Prince is conducted, not to the Fortress, but
to a certain Town Mansion, which he is to call his own henceforth, under
conditions: an erring Prince half liberated, and mercifully put on proof
again. His first act here is to write, of his own composition, or helped
by some official hand, this Letter to his All-serenest Papa; which must
be introduced, though, except to readers of German who know the "DERE"
(TheirO), "ALLERDURCHLAUCHTIGSTER," and strange pipe-clay solemnity
of the Court-style, it is like to be in great part lost in any
translation:--

"CUSTRIN, 19th November, 1730.

"ALL-SERENEST AND ALL-GRACIOUSEST FATHER,--To your Royal Majesty, my
All-graciousest Father, have,"--I.E. "I have," if one durst write the
"I,"--"by my disobedience as TheirO [YourO] subject and soldier, not
less than by my undutifulness as TheirO Son, given occasion to a just
wrath and aversion against me. With the All-obedientest respect I submit
myself wholly to the grace of my most All-gracious Father; and beg him,
Most All-graciously to pardon me; as it is not so much the withdrawal of
my liberty in a sad arrest (MALHEUREUSEN ARREST), as my own thoughts of
the fault I have committed, that have brought me to reason: Who, wi